Director: Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum. Also DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie and BD Wong
Distributor: Universal Pictures International
Runtime: 147 mins. Reviewed in Jun 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Sustained threat and action violence

This science fiction, adventure film continues the Jurassic Park franchise, and shows dinosaurs hunting and living together with humans all over the world. The balance between animals and humans is precarious.

This American film is the sixth Jurassic film in a franchise that began with Jurassic Park in 1993, directed by Stephen Spielberg from a novel written by Michael Crichton. It is the sequel to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), where dinosaurs were saved from extinction after a volcano threatened their existence, and it concludes the storyline that began with Jurassic World (2015), in which a theme park was created, and a genetically engineered dinosaur escaped its enclosure and terrorised tourists.

Spielberg has acted co-executively in several of the film productions. Sequels have occurred across two trilogies, and, in this film, the storyline has moved into the second of these trilogies that commenced with Jurassic World. Actors from a large ensemble cast return in this film to reprise their roles from previous movies, and they are joined by Australia’s Neill, who reprises his role from the original Jurassic Park as palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant.

Filming for this movie took place in British Columbia and in Malta. Following on from Fallen Kingdom, events take place four years after Isla Nublar (a volcanic Island west of Costa Rica) was destroyed. Dinosaurs for the first time live in a world where humans and genuinely co-exist. They live and hunt together, but they constitute a fragile balance. The film pointedly pits humanity against dinosaurs. Humans and fierce animals populate modern society together, but dinosaurs and raptors provide humans with ‘sustained threat’.

The computer effects are stunning. They show sophisticated and technically advanced animation, excellent visual and sound effects, and computer-generated realism. Particularly impressive is a huge new dinosaur, known as ‘The Ciga’, which is a lethal terror. The movie thematically deals with animal attachment and animal cruelty, and has a plotline that is serially fantastic – nothing less than stealing DNA to save the world. This film displays bad behaviour by humans and animals, and the film takes some time to warm up to show animals on the attack.

The film’s main trio are Grant, Dr Ellie Sattler (Dern) – Grant’s reinvigorated romantic interest –and Dr Ian Malcolm (Goldblum), who starred in the original Jurassic Park. Together they illustrate considerable plot complexity, and everyone lives among extraordinary happenings and events. Both dinosaurs and humans create a huge array of difficult situations.

This film concludes a complex storyline which began with the ‘World’ trilogy in 2015. There may well be future films, but this film looks as if it might conclude the Jurassic Park franchise. A lot of expensive machinery and animation has gone into the construction and creation of Tyrannosaurus Rex and other animals in the franchise; in particular, The Ciga from this film. Most of the animals depicted in this movie demonstrate the creation of special effects involving highly intricate machinery, and it is hard to see them being laid to rest. Everything looked secure in the final moments of this film, but one can only question whether such harmony is likely to endure.

The real stars of this movie are, of course, the dinosaurs and raptors, when the film gets to them. They are fantastic, and they are the magic of an impressive adventure film.